| Eagerly holding open the front door, she vivaciously greeted her husband with a smiling "Hi, Honey! I'm glad you're home!" as her husband shuffled listlessly into the living room of their neat little suburban home, rumpled clothes hanging loosely on his thin frame, briefcase swinging from his hand like dead weight. His slumped shoulders and dour expression took the smile off her face. She gave him a concerned look. "What's the matter?" He mumbled a barely audible "Nothing" as he ambled on across the room, sinking wearily down on the couch. Dumping his briefcase beside him, he loosened his tie, fumbled with the top buttons of his shirt, then ran his hand through his hair and with a sigh settled back, fatigue and apprehension prominent. "Something must be." He looked over at his wife watching him tensely, crisp and starchy in her gray skirt and white blouse, black high-heels, a single strand of pearls accentuating her slender throat, just a hint of lipstick and make-up, and earrings discreetly visible through thick jet-black hair sweeping to her shoulders in elegantly coiffed waves. "Just tired." "Busy day?" "You bet." His wife noticed how wrinkled his suit seemed this evening and how uncharacteristically disheveled he appeared. "You look like you've slept in your clothes." "Oh, no. Negotiate contracts all day--you won't look so good, either!" His feeble laugh didn't convince her he was joking. She frowned mysteriously and disapprovingly. But then he realized he wasn't joking. The exhaustion penetrated into his bones. His decrepitude wasn't imagination. It was real. "And when you have the client from Hell--who wants to give away what he should be selling...!" He let out a raucous laugh that sliced painfully through his chest, morphing into a spasm of coughing. His wife was hovering over him tentatively. "Bill..." He gestured dismissively. "Yeah. Yeah. I'm okay." She whirled away from him toward the kitchen. "Supper is just about ready. You hungry?" "Not really." She took a step back toward him. "I have something very interesting to tell you." "Do you?" Her face brightened. "Yes!" "What...?" "Later," she said teasingly. "Oh, come on." "Later." With a certain jubilant sprint, she hurried into the kitchen. "We got any aspirin?" "Of course we do," she called from the kitchen. A metallic rattle echoed off the kitchen walls. High-heels clicked with military precision on the floor tiles. "Oh, Lord!" "What--you okay? Alice...?" "Nearly dropped a pan. I drop everything these days. That's unacceptable. Must be something wrong with me. Maybe I should go to a doctor." He cringed at the thought of more illness. "But the kitchen isn't my fort�." Another rattle reverberated. "Yes, I'm okay." Fine china clinked. With a pleading whine he asked once again, "Honey--aspirin...?" "Look in the medicine cabinet. In the bathroom. Headache?" "Yeah." He stood up, a bit wobbly, then shuffled feebly down the long hall into the bathroom. Faint, he leaned against the bathroom doorway for a moment, then made a dash to the basin, tightly gripping the rim to prevent the dreaded eminent collapse. The headaches were getting worse. It was a neurological problem. It had to be. He dared not speculate further. He took a peek at himself in the mirror of the medicine cabinet. A face drawn and haggard stared at him. Startling. Definite exhaustion. A symptom of something. And his complexion--so pale. And his face--so thin now. Thinner each day. Symptoms. Symptoms. Everything a symptom of unseen, microscopic, invisible enemies attacking him from within. He was sick. He knew it. No doubt, terminal. Giving a yank at the recalcitrant door of the medicine cabinet, his shaking, fumbling fingers reaching in knocked the bottle of aspirin tablets on the top shelf down into the basin. The vibrating clatter of cheap plastic on enameled porcelain sent sharp spikes reverberating through his unnerved psyche. Muttering curses, he angrily grabbed the vial, unscrewed the top, and impatiently shook white pills into his palm. Holding up the bottle, he squinted at the small print on the label. Take only two at a time. He looked at his palm. He had four pills. I'll take four. So what if it kills me? I'm probably going to die anyway. He looked again at the label. Extra Strength Tablets. Good. That's just what I need. Something extra strength. He popped the pills, washing them down with a glass of water from the tap. His vision momentarily blurred as his brain went fuzzy. Panic raced through him. Oh, God. I must be dying. Then as the fuzziness receded and something resembling mental clarity returned, he remembered he'd forgotten to call his physician today for the blood work results. That dreaded call had been put off for a week, neglected purposely. But today he'd actually intended to call, though he didn't really want the results. Ignore the symptoms, the illnesses will go away. "You okay?" Turning, he saw his wife standing in the doorway regarding him strangely, perturbed at this unseemly aberration in her well-ordered, regimented universe. He nodded. "Um hmmm." "Want to lie down a while?" "Nope." "Dinner's just about ready." "Not very hungry." Steadying his hands to safely return the aspirin bottle to the top shelf, he noted a further directive on the label: If symptoms persist, consult your physician. I've already consulted my physician. I still have my symptoms. They still persist. I'm tired of consulting my physician. I'm tired of my symptoms. "Bill...? Anything the matter?" "Nope." "It's stress." "You think so?" "Of course I do. That's all it is. That's what I keep telling you. And you won't listen." He nodded listlessly. Humor her. Don't argue. It's easier that way. "You have too much work to do. That would give anyone a headache. You have to learn to manage your time wisely--control the situations. That company you work for is merciless. You have to tell them to hire you an assistant." He chuckled at her naivet�. "Budget. They can't afford it." "Oh, they're just saying that." Not possessed of the energy or the fortitude for a disputatious discussion, he mumbled appeasingly, "Uh huh." "It's just corporate bullshit." He shook his head decisively. "I...don't...think... so..." His wife glared her disagreement. Shutting the door of the medicine cabinet, he averted his eyes from the mirror to avoid that woebegone face staring out at him. "You don't even look like you're on this planet." He chuckled. "Maybe I'm not." "Honestly, Bill. You get weirder every day." She started away from the bathroom, then suddenly turned toward him. "Oh, I almost forgot--" "What?" "Your doctor called today." He froze into the stiffness of a corpse, dread and terror paralyzing every muscle. "Message on the answering machine when I got back this afternoon." He stood immobile, not saying anything. "Honey?" "What was the message...?" "Oh--" She shrugged nonchalantly. "Just to call them. Didn't say about what. Didn't you have some tests--several weeks ago...?" He nodded slowly. "I guess that's what it's about." "Yeah..." He shrugged limply. "I guess that's what it is." "Well, don't look so frightened. You're not dying." He cocked his head warily, eyebrow raised, at her considering the possibility of his death. What does she know that I don't? "I'm sure--Bill, I'm sure all the tests were normal." Normal. The tests were anything but. He was certain of that. The Oracle at Delphi had read the entrails, and now his physician--the harbinger of his doom--was calling to tell him of the horrible Fate awaiting him. "Did you erase the message?" "No. I left it for you. Thought you'd want to hear it for yourself." He did want to hear it for himself. He hurried anxiously past her into the living room. Staring tensely down at the answering machine, he saw the luminescent '1' glowing blood-red in the display panel with an evil radiance. One call. One. The Fates care nothing for mankind. Sitting anxiously on the examining table in his doctor's office, cold and vulnerable in the pale blue paper robe, waiting for the stethoscope against his chest, the needle in his vein for the blood, the electrodes for the cardiogram and the inevitable diagnosis, his physician, cradling several manila file folders in his arms, rushed through into the medical office assistant's tiny cubicle. "Call Mr. Smith, tell him the blood work is abnormal and I need to see him right away." Returning to the examining room, his physician placed the folders on a small table, opened one, shuffled the charts, then looked up at the anxiety-drenched patient. "How are you today?" '1'. One call. And then, after the examination: "Has Elaine checked your weight?" "No." "Elaine?" The physician glanced toward the assistant's cubicle. "Check Mr. Walker's weight, would you?" Then he glanced at his patient again. "After she's checked your weight, come on into my office." Before the doctor finished speaking, Elaine was already in the examining room--brusque and efficient in her crisply starched medical office assistant's white slacks, blouse and white sneakers, red hair shellacked into a bouffant-- squinting at the scale through the retro spectacles sliding down her nose as she adjusted the weights. "Okay, Mr. Walker...if you'll just step on the scale." And then he was seated across from his physician in the leather chair before the huge desk cluttered with stacks of manila files and medical journals and half-empty Styrofoam coffee cups. "What about the headaches? Do you still have the headaches?" "Yes." His physician scribbled on a page in the file. "Severe?" "Sometimes." More scribbling. "I take aspirin. Lots of aspirin." The doctor stared frowningly at a chart in his patient's file. "Weakness? Dizziness?" "Yes." More scribbling. "The x-rays..." Heartbeat suspended, adrenalin flowing, the patient stiffened in horrible expectation, gripping the arms of the chair with the death hold grasp of rigor mortis, waiting for the pronouncement of his imminent demise. ". . .we took--when was it..." He shuffled the charts. "Two months ago...showed nothing unusual.� Heartbeat resumed. Reassuring thump, thump in his chest. Arms relaxing their grip, he oozed down in the chair, the leather cold and damp. "My wife says it's stress." "She might be right.� "Is she...?" He chuckled bemusedly. "Sometimes you should listen to your wife." The doctor smiled laughingly. "Wives are always right. Haven't you learned that?" The patient gave a sickly smile. "Why don't you take a few days off--get some rest--see if that helps." "I wish I could." He chuckled, wheezing. "I'd lose my job!� The doctor gave him a moment's dour scrutiny, then glanced down at the chart. "You've lost fifteen pounds since your last visit..." His physician shuffled through charts in the file. "Since your last visit two months ago." He looked up at his nervous patient. "I've been watching my diet carefully. Like you told me to." "That's very good. But fifteen pounds in two months--I'll have an additional test done on the blood. Just to make sure there's nothing abnormal about your weight loss." He smiled wanly and unreassuringly. '1'. Abnormal. '1'. Abnormal. With the fearful hesitation of one about to receive Fate's unkind pronouncement, he pushed the "new message" button on the machine. "Mr. Walker." The grave voice spoke grimly. "This is Elaine in Dr. Anderson's office. Give us a call tomorrow." And then the machine's computerized, artificial croak: "End of new message." They want to tell me I'm terminally ill. They've found something in the blood. An excess of white cells. The blood work is abnormal. Call him and tell him I need to see him right away. Abnormal. '1'. Abnormal. It's terminal. "That's all the message said, Bill. Just to call them." He looked away from the machine. His wife was standing beside him. "Yeah." "Well, don't look so dour. Let's eat. And I'll tell you the good news." *** From her vantage point across the dining table, his wife disapprovingly watched him staring morosely at his plate of untouched food. "Obviously you don't approve of what I prepared for tonight's meal," she said edgily. "It's not that." "Well, admittedly, I didn't have much time, even though I did want it to be special. I've had a busy day." "It's delicious, Alice. I'm not very--" "Well, maybe this will perk you up. I had a very successful interview today." He glanced distractedly at her. "This was my second interview." He nodded. "I was hired!" He nodded again. "Manager!" "Oh, good! We'll have two incomes. Now I won't go broke trying to pay the mortgage!" Later that evening, both of them in the living room--he slumped in the easy chair concerned now about the pain starting to radiate down his left arm, his wife seated authoritatively on the couch discussing the August responsibilities of her new position in the corporate world--he suddenly got up from his chair, announcing, "I'm going for a walk." Blackness swirled before him. He heard his wife speaking in the darkness. "Bill! Aren't you at all interested in what I'm--" The darkness dissolved into a blurry vision of the living room materializing again around him. "Yes. I am. Very. But I need some air." "Why don't I go with you? We could stop over at Ted and Julia's. She'll just die when I tell her about my new job. She's so jealous of everything I do. This will torment her." A glow of triumph radiated around her, luminescent like the red '1' on the answering machine. "I'm just--going around the block. Ted and Julia--some other time. I'll be right back." She regarded him peculiarly. "I'll be right back," he said reassuringly. His wife sat, petulant and pouting. The pain throbbed through the blood vessels in his head, but he kept walking, wondering if he would black out on the street as just nearly occurred in the living room, lie on the sidewalk unconscious for hours, mauled by muggers, perhaps awaken in the hospital--or perhaps not awaken at all. The humid, sticky summer night air clung thickly to him, stifling his lungs, impeding his breathing, giving his clothes the tight, constricted feel of a shroud. But he was outside. In the open. Free of confinement. Now he could ponder his phobias. Perhaps a long walk would exorcize his fears. He looked up at the dark sky. No dots of light in the blackness. The stars have been snuffed out. Thin, white transparent clouds raced across a shiny, silvery-white half-moon. '1'. Abnormal. That's what they want to tell me. He stumbled as a wave of dizziness swept over him. Turning a corner onto a darkened street of distorted and elongated shadows dancing in geometric distortions in the light of the moon and a distant street lamp, one of the shadows suddenly metamorphosed before him into something corporeal, and he felt a blunt object pressing hard into his chest. "Gimme the money ya got in ya pockets, man." Gleaming eyes of the dark figure stared meanly into his face. Startled, he let out a laugh of incredulity and ironic amusement at what was happening to him. When meeting Death is inevitable, what difference does it make how you meet it? The blunt object pushed harder against his chest. "I got a gun, man." "But I don't have any money." The pain throbbed violently through his head. '1'. Abnormal. Everything is abnormal. "You don't cooperate, I hit you over the head, I goes through your pockets myself, then I shoots you dead." He couldn't help laughing at this pronouncement of a Fate certainly already determined by stethoscopes, laboratory analysis of blood, electrocardiograms, charts in a manila file folder. "Go ahead. Shoot a dead man!" The dark figure moved back a step. "Okay, bud. You asked for it. This one's for you." He felt the bullet rip open his gut. *** Hysterically pacing the living room, but never wavering on her high heels, not a tear to mar her make-up, refusing to lose the complete self-control required of a manager even in dire situations, his wife fiercely screamed an incessant "No! No! No!" as if through blunt denials she could alter unalterable reality. Two cops watched her awkwardly, embarrassed at raw emotions, but marveling at the steeliness evidenced beneath the screaming. "Mrs. Walker," said the female cop. "Do you have anyone to stay with you--anywhere you can go?" "No!!! I will stay here! This is my home! I do not need anyone! I will manage this myself!" When the ringing of the telephone awakened her the next morning, she thought she was coming out of a nightmare like the ones that had terrorized her childhood nights. But when she realized she was in her bedroom--alone--she knew this nightmare was real and the sunlight gleaming in brightly through the windows wouldn't dispel the evil demons. "Hello," she said dully into the receiver. "Mrs. Walker?" "Yes?" "This is Elaine in Dr. Anderson's office." "Yes. My husband got your message." "My call yesterday was in error. I was going to tell him when he called me his blood work was abnormal and Dr. Anderson wanted to see him right away." She laughed apologetically. "But I was looking at the wrong test report. Isn't that something? It wasn't your husband's. Everything is normal. Is Mr. Walker there? Can I speak to him?" The widow gripped the receiver with a steely resoluteness, replying succinctly, emotions firmly under control. "No. I'm afraid you can't speak to him. He's dead." SPRING 2008 |
| Shoot A Dead Man by Lewis A. Harvey |